Description:
This paper studies the effect of communist indoctrination in school on labour force participation and human capital investments. Specifically, we evaluate the impacts of a reform in Poland that reduced the load of Marxism-Leninism from school curriculum and grading system, while leaving unchanged the rest of the curriculum. To overcome endogeneity concerns, we exploit cut-off birth dates for school enrollment that lead to variation in the level of exposure to the reform. We find that less indoctrination in school improved the probability of children completion of secondary and tertiary education, and increased labour force participation nearly 50 years later